Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1887-01-15
CHAPTER XIV.
IN THE HOSPITAL.

IN THE HOSPITAL
An army hospital is the vcstibuIe of the
cemetery, the ante-room where the recruit
ing agents of death-wounds and disease
assemble their conscripts to prepare them for.
the ranks from which there is neither de-
sertlon nor discharge,
1t was a broiling hot day when Rachel
Bond descended from the ambulance which
had brought her from the station to camp.
She shielded her eyes with palm leaf fan,
and surveyed the surroundings of the post of
duty to which she had been assigned She
found herself in little city Of rough plank
barracks, arranged in COMMERCIALLY correct
streets and angles about great plain of a
parade ground, from which the heat radiated
as from a glowing stove A flag drooped as
if wilted from the top of a tall pole standing
on the side of the parade ground opposite her.
The hospital to which Rachel had been
brought differed from the rest of the sheds in
the camp by being whitewaSked within and
without, which made it radiate a still more
uncomfortable heat than its duller-lHstel,d
companions. \ powerful odor of chloride Of
lime and carbolie acid shocked her sensitive
nostrils with their tales of all the repulsive-
Eess those disinfe-tants were intended to de
stroy or hide
Several detected. hellow-eyed convalescents,
whose uniforms hung about their wasted
bodies as they would ABOUT wooden crosses,
sat on benches in the scanty shade by one side
of the building, and famed themselves weakly
with fans clumsily fashioned from old news
papers They looked up as the trim, lady like
figure stepped lightly down from the ambu-
| lance, and the long absent luster returned
briefly to their sad eyes.
That looks like home, jim" said one of
the fever wasted
THAT it does. Lord, she looks as fresh and
sweet as the Johnny jump-ups down by our
old spring house. expect she's come down
here to find somebody that belongs to her
that's sick. Don't I wish it was me!7
4 wouldn't mind being brother, or a
cousin, or a sweetheart to her myself That'd
he better luck than to be given a sutler shop.
Just see her move! She's got purifier gait
than our thoroughbred colt
You're a-talking. She's a lady-every
inch Of her-genuine, simon-pure, fast colors,
all wool, a yard wide, as fine as silk and
bright as a May morning.
All unconscious that her appearance was to
the invalids who looked upon her like a
sweet, health giving breeze bursting through
a tainted atmosphere, Rachel passed YEARLY
along the burning walks toward the surgeon S
office, with growing heart sickness at tho
unwelcome appearance of the task she had
elected for herself
The journey had been full Of irritating dis
comforts Heat, dust and soiled linen are
only annoyances to a man; they are real
miseries to a woman.
Ushered into the surgeons Office she was
presented to DR.. Denslow, hazel-eyed,
brown bearded man Of 80 The reader has
already made his acquaintance. He re-
celved her With the pleasant, manly sympa-
thy for her sex, which had already made him
one of the most popular of family physicians
II the city where he was practicing at the
outbreak of the wal
Rachei's depressed spirits rose again at his
cordial reception.
Il am 50 busy he said, after brief ex-
change of commonplaces, that I'll not have
the time to give you much information this
afternoon as to your duties. and know that
you are so fatiglIed with your journey and
the heat that you viii not care to do anything
but rest and refresh yourself | viii there
fore show you Immediately to ourquarters.
"This will be your field of labor he said,
as he led her down the long aisle between
rows Of cots toward her room ats not q
cheerful one to contemplate at first. Human
suffering is always depressing spectacle,
and you will see here more of it and more
varied agony than yOu can find anywhere
outside of an army hospitals walls But as
the deed is so is the duty, and the glory OF
doing it,
So earnest was his enthusiasm that Rachel
felt herself lifted up by it, in spite of her dis
comforts. But then she turned her eyes
away from bis impassionated face, and looked
over the array Of white beds, each with Its
pale and haggard occupant, his eyes blazing
with the delirium of fever, or closed in the
languor of exhaustion, with limbs tossing as
the febrile fire seethed the blood, or culver.
ing with the last agonies. Groans, pray.
ers and not q few oaths fell on her ears.
The repulsive smell of the disinfectants, the
nauseating oder of the sick room where
hundreds of inyalids were lying, the horrible
eftiuvia of the typhus rose on the hot air, and
seemed part of the misery which so strongly
assailed her other senses
She was sick at heart, and with every feel
ing in active revolt, but without a word, she
turned and followed DIR. Denslow to hot,
close, little room which had been cut off one
end of the hospital, though not SO separated
from it but that the sounds and odors from
the sick wards continually filtered in through
the wide cracks in its plank sides An iron
bedstead, of the same pattern as that upon
which the sick lay, stood in one corner, and
in another was rlldely fashioned stand
upon which was tin basin, cake of yellow
bar soap, and bucket of water for washing.
This was all the furniture
As the door closed behind the doctor
Rachel threw herself upon the cot, in q fit OF
despair at the wreck of all her fancies, and
the responsiveness of the career upon which
she had embarked.
II cannot viii motive here q week, .
she said to herself, over and over again. y
will die for the lack of the comforts-of the
decencies of life, even-to say nothing Of
being poisoned by these horrible smells, on
driven distractad by the raving sick and